


Feathers

by drunkdragon



Series: My Tumblr Prompts [15]
Category: RWBY
Genre: F/M, Kink?, Qrowin - Freeform, Smut, feathers - Freeform, mild Victorian Era influences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 23:34:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12119700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drunkdragon/pseuds/drunkdragon
Summary: The man that had been responsible for this, a scientist mad with ambition, was long since tried and hanged for his radical ideals. The schism, however, remained undeniable. Qrow Branwen wasn’t quite Qrow Branwen anymore.And Winter Schnee did not like it.





	Feathers

**Author's Note:**

> Qrowin Prompt: "We've been looking for you and rescued you from the lab where they were experimenting on you OMG WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOU"

It was hard to tell where hair ended and feathers began. But once the eyes had traveled well and long down the back of his neck, feathers were all that were until they reached his shoulders. Deep and black, long and stiff, they were as much natural as they were unnatural. They grew like feathers, cascaded like feathers, felt like feathers. And yet they were borne from supple human skin, nurtured by the blood in his veins.

The man that had been responsible for this, a scientist mad with ambition, was long since tried and hanged for his radical ideals. The schism, however, remained undeniable. Qrow Branwen wasn’t quite Qrow Branwen anymore.

And Winter Schnee did not like it. She did not like it anymore than anyone else who was involved with the investigation. Having already been betrothed to him for several months already, for him to have disappeared and then be found chained and tortured and experimented upon-

Qrow Branwen wasn’t quite Qrow Branwen anymore, and she did not like it.

But he tried to be. And watching it was enough to make it hurt. Clothes were made for humans, not the mad hybrid that he had become. His feathers were never fully accommodated, pressing and prickling into his skin. He oft complained about them, how he couldn’t sleep on his back anymore, and all the other myriad of ways where they got in the way.

It was the stares from his fellow colleagues, however, that drove it home the worst. Those who knew him before the change didn’t care about who he had become now. They stared at him with pity, however, as if he was only a shadow of who he once was.

It was the newer ones that truly made it unbearable, though. Their stares behind his back, the pointed fingers, the quiet whispers. He felt it all, enough to the point where he confided with Winter he was afraid he was becoming paranoid.

This could not continue, and Winter sought to change it.

* * *

Ozpin had talked Qrow into the Autumn Formal. He told the man that he wouldn’t go, he shouldn’t go, and that Oobleck would have been a far better candidate to help represent their growing academy.

“I won’t tell you to just go and relax, Qrow. This is as much of a diplomatic situation as it is a time to be more comfortable with who you are now. Winter is attending, and I am to believe that she is very invested in seeing you there as well.”

He complained that he would never be comfortable with who he was now. His concept of normal was no longer the same. But in the end he relented. He dressed in a black suit that matched his feathers - so that it would stand out less. His collar was raised with the hopes to shield even more of them, and finally placed upon his head was a silk top hat before tucking his sword by his side.

Moving was uncomfortable. Sitting down equally so. But he was expected to appear and represent Beacon as one of the most able-bodied instructors of hunters, and so he did. As he stepped off of the coach, the rider turning the horses towards to the stables for now. There was no turning back.

As he mingled with the guests, doing his best to introduce himself, Qrow lost count of how many times he was asked about his feathers. Some even had the gall to ask about his time as a captive - something he didn’t want to share with anyone, something that he only shared with Winter after a hard day. It was a conversation ender. There would be no acquaintances - only a lukewarm impression of a man who once was.

And then Winter arrived.

He was expecting her to be in her soldier uniform again. That was what she wore to the last event like this. But instead, she was making a beeline towards him with a dress as black as his hair and feathers, cinched at the waist and puffed by a small bustle. The cloth travelled up to her shoulders, and her sleeves hugged her arms before frilling out at the end.

Yet it was not the dress itself that was catching his attention. There were many women who were similarly dressed, after all. Instead, Winter’s outfit was tailored with black feathers tapering off from the back. A few of them were on her wrists and shoulders, and upon closer look the bustle was topped with them as well.

But the choker on her neck, deep as midnight and full of black feathers coming off from the rear, was when he realized her purpose. It was not a fashion statement. She was hardly shallow enough to stoop to that point. It was instead a declaration of oneness.

He would have been ashamed of himself had she not pulled her body up in front of him and taken away the time for such a thought.

“We are to dance, are we not? It is a formal event, after all.”

* * *

The night was still difficult, but Winter saved him some reiteration. At least they talked about her feathers and not his. But as the eve began to draw to a close, Qrow realized that all night long he had been staring at her. Fixated by her.

She was like him, if only for some hours of the night.The feathers would come off when she removed her dress, but for a moment they were the same, if only partially. More importantly, he could forget that he was different.

It was a shame that the event came to an end, he thought. For perhaps the first in a long while, he was reluctant to let go of Winter’s hand for other reasons beyond his inability to cope. So much that he openly cursed when his carriage arrived.

“It would appear that I must part ways with you now, Winter.” His tone was jokingly somber, something that surprised even him.

But as she looked him in the eyes, her blues against his reds, he could see a low, bubbling mirth of sorts coming from her. “Did you wish to part ways here tonight?”

“Truly? Not ever.”

“Then let us not ever part.” And with the smallest bit of hiking her dress, she climbed into his carriage, leaving him dumbstruck outside of it before she beckoned him to join her.

“Won’t your father have something to say about this?” Qrow asked as he pulled himself inside.

“Hardly - I even think he would rather encourage it as this whole engagement has gone for longer than expected. Besides, he is well aware of my predisposition from being a soldier. Life is fleeting, after all.”

* * *

The ride back was uneventful beyond talk. The glass of wine after they shared in his study was commonplace. And when she placed a kiss on his cheek, he smiled and returned the favor. It wasn’t anything special - rather, it was as if nothing had changed between now and then. As if the feathers on his neck weren’t there.

But after another drink of wine, a closer hold, a longer kiss, Qrow knew that this was becoming more than just enjoying each other’s company. As she stood up and took hold of his hand, his own heart hammered away at his chest again. This wasn’t the first time they had been intimate with each other, and it showed in how she led the way down the halls, up the stairs, and around bends to reach his quarters.

It was like old times, again, Winter sneaking away from her father’s house to be with him. Times before the mess with the feathers happened.

He felt himself petrify as Winter shut the door behind him. As she moved to embrace him from behind, his own breathing hitched and he struggled to breath, air not reaching his lungs, his vitals.

“W-Winter…” he whimpered, “I-I don’t- I can’t-”

Her covered breasts pressed against his back, where his feathers would have been, and he tensed. “We don’t have to,” she quietly said. Fingers idly drew circles on his chest, on his stomach, sending trails of heat to his loins. “You can say no, and we’ll simply be at rest with each other. We do not have to rush to love. But it would be most pleasing to me if we could.”

He felt ashamed, unworthy to even be in here with her, with anyone anywhere for the matter. “I don’t… I’m not even fully human anymore.”

But it had been so long since he let himself feel her touch, to bask under her fingers, to feel her breath on his skin-

“Take me as you are, Qrow. I want nothing else right now.”

To feel her shake and moan beneath him, to have her grip him in sheer adrenaline-

“Give me every fiber of your being - feathers and flesh combined.”

Her hand dipped to his waist line and below, feeling his hardened length against the cloth. But where she might have begun to undo his clothing previously, instead she walked out in front of him towards the bed, the feathers of her dress and collar shimmering in the low light. And slowly she began to undo the ties that held her dress together.

It was as if a siren’s call had echoed across the quiet between them. He stepped forward, and piece by piece the dress was done away with. First the dress itself, then the inner pieces of it. Soon, she was naked before him except for the collar, pale flesh against his, and he reached to undo it.

But she turned around and her hand grasped his, a half-daring smile on her face. “Let’s leave these feathers alone tonight.” She then placed herself onto his bed, her hips sitting on the edge of it and spreading her legs for him to see everything. It was as if she was suddenly a being of the opposite gender again, and he moved forward, clawing away at his coat and buttons, his own pieces of clothing joining her on the floor.

The first thing he did was kiss her. He threw everything into it, even as she moved upward to allow him space. Their tongues clashed and fought, her hands doing their best to remove the last of his pants and leave him in just his feathers, just like her. Finally it was removed, the offending piece of cloth kicked away onto the floor, just the two of them on the sheets.

Her hands began to feel his chest, feel around his waist, touching everything but his cock in that teasing manner of hers. But he was always the more impatient of the two, and his hand snaked down her body, to the side of her hip and then to the front. With a slow drag across the opening, her body slowly arched as she groaned, her lips breaking away from him.

Qrow dragged his fingers over her again. She was wet. Unbelievably wet.

“Y-You’re feathers,” she managed to gasp. For a moment Qrow was unsure of what she meant and felt himself freeze at her words. But she pushed her soaked crotch against his hand, driving another breath and a tiny laugh out of her.

He ventured to inquire. “What about them?”

“They’re fluff up,” another smile grew across her features, “like a bird in winter.”

He rolled his eyes, but her hands drew him in for another long and hard kiss before pulling away. “It’s beautiful.”

That was a word he had not expected, but it was enough. He felt her hands lining him up against her. With a final glance down, he pushed in, slowly until everything was inside. Her legs widened to make it easier and her arms circled around his neck.

But he saw her collar again, its black feathers standing out against the sheets of his bed and the white of her hair. With a growl, he grasped her arms and held them out in front of him before gently pushing down, pinning them down. He leaned in to whisper into her ear.

“If they’re so beautiful, then try to keep an eye on them.”

He could hear the shiver in her breath. Moving his body away from hers, taking in the entirety of her chest and her face and her neck and _her feathers_ , he began to move. Slowly, their hips began to push and pull. But he was in control, in power, and he determined when they groaned and keened in pleasure. And with each meeting of their hips, if he pushed just hard enough, her body would gently rock from the collision. Her body would bob, her breasts would rise and fall in that tantalizing manner that he liked.

But the collar on her neck would shift in just the tiniest of ways, and in a sense her feathers became alive. As if she really was his sexual opposite, a perfect one-to-one mate of the strange being he had become.

And it drove him into a slow frenzy. Each thrust came sooner, moved faster, sending that enticing tremor across her body. Before long he was pushing hard and fast, lost in a sensation he had nearly forgotten.

There was a yell, something deep echoing within the two of them and he crumpled over. Her legs had long circled his waist, keeping him deep and still, feeling his body pulse and empty its being into her, of her madly squeezing against him for more.

And all the while, the only thing he could pick out across the mess of sensations was how her feathers moved in tandem with her writhing body.

She wouldn’t always wear it. It would be an unreasonable expectation to put upon her. Her body was already more than enough for him. But he could feel a desire to see them shimmer and shiver again, and his body agreed. He started to move once more, burying himself into Winter again and again.

There was a voice, though - her voice - and through his lust-filled haze, he somehow found the will to pause and listen.

“You- Your feathers, when you-” she took a deep breath, but she didn’t finish her sentence.

“What…” he swallowed taking a breath for himself, “What about them?”

Instead, she leaned in to kiss him. “You move them. They become alive.”

“Re-... Really?”

“Yes, my love. And it’s _majestic_ when they do.”

There was a guttural laugh, and from whom it was unknown, as once more Qrow and Winter moved against each other like beasts.


End file.
